On the very day that the devout Muslim group Boko Haram released a video of the kidnapped Nigerian schoolgirls, clad in burkas and being forced to recite the Qur’an, author Dean Obeidallah declared in the Daily Beast that “The Nigerian terrorist group that kidnapped hundreds of schoolgirls has nothing to do with Islam, and it’s grotesquely irresponsible of the media to suggest it does.”
Mr. Obeidallah, it’s not the media that suggests it; it is Boko Haram that declares it.
It is not grotesque to tell the truth. What is grotesque is that the widely-read Daily Beast would run such damaging propaganda by a failed yet self-described “comic.”
The Daily Beast is doing an end run for Islamic jihad when these girls’ lives hang in the balance. That is a different kind of savagery. The Beast is more worried about Islam’s PR than it is in educating the public on the most grave threat to freedom, not just in Nigeria but across the world.
Clearly, the hashtag #BringBackOurGirls is just more empty rhetoric from hypocrites, not an honest clarion call for action.
The hashtag shouldn’t be #BringBackOurGirls. The hashtag should be #TellTheTruth.
I have written hundreds of pieces on Boko Haram over the past few years reporting on their monstrous acts of jihad that were virtually ignored by the media. Schools, hospitals, women, children, teachers, and doctors have been savagely and systematically murdered in the cause of jihad. Boko Haram (which literally means “non-Islamic education is evil”) wants an Islamic state ruled by the Sharia. But Obeidallah makes this declaration:
Attention members of the media: Kindly stop referring to the Nigerian terrorist group Boko Haram as “Islamic terrorists,” “Islamists” or anything else involving the word “Islam.” The despicable acts taken by this militant group–from kidnapping schoolgirls to slaughtering people at churches and mosques–have absolutely nothing to do with Islam.
According to whom, exactly? Islamic supremacists and their apologists have been at this war of disinformation for decades. It’s why we find ourselves in the grave situation we are in. Stealth jihadists and their media operatives have been disarming the American people in the information battle-space.
Obdeillah queries, “Why do our media continually use terms like ‘Islamist’ or ‘Islamic radical…?'” Of course, this is ingenuous. The reason the media use the rather silly term “Islamist” or “Islamic radical” is because the devout Muslims engaged in jihad (holy war) are citing Qur’an chapter and verse. They are identifying themselves as such. This is jihadic doctrine. Disinformationalists like Obdeillah don’t have a theological leg to stand on.
The question we should be asking is, “Why do Muslims attack those of us that are merely reporting the truth? Why aren’t these ‘moderates’ looking inwards and addressing the Islamic texts and teachings that command jihad instead of providing cover?” It is, in fact, complicity.
Dean Obeidallah and other dissemblers may say that Boko Haram is not Islamic, but Boko Haram (and al-Qaeda, the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas, Hezb’allah, et al.) says that Obeidallah and less devout Muslims aren’t Islamic. In the Muslim world, outside of the ivory towers of media and academia, millions of Muslims agree with Boko Haram. Under Islam, secular Muslims are apostates, punishable by death.
Of course, world leaders rush to the defense of Islam. Some Muslim leaders assure us that the kidnapping of the Nigerian schoolgirls has nothing at all to do with Islam, but many Muslim leaders and imams disagree. Robert Spencer points to this fatwa on the issue from Islam Q & A: “Ruling on having intercourse with a slave woman when one has a wife.”
Then there are these passages from the Qur’an:
If you fear that you will not act justly towards the orphans, marry such women as seem good to you, two, three, four; but if you fear you will not be equitable, then only one, or what your right hands own; so it is likelier you will not be partial. (Qur’an 4:3)
And also prohibited to you are all married women except those your right hands possess. (Qur’an 4:24)
Spencer also points to the Egyptian Sheikh Abu-Ishaq al-Huwayni who declared in May 2011 that “we are in the era of jihad,” and that as they waged jihad warfare against infidels, Muslims would take slaves. He clarified what he meant in a subsequent interview:
…Jihad is only between Muslims and infidels. Spoils, slaves, and prisoners are only to be taken in war between Muslims and infidels. Muslims in the past conquered, invaded, and took over countries. This is agreed to by all scholars – there is no disagreement on this from any of them, from the smallest to the largest, on the issue of taking spoils and prisoners. The prisoners and spoils are distributed among the fighters, which includes men, women, children, wealth, and so on.
When a slave market is erected, which is a market in which are sold slaves and sex-slaves, which are called in the Qur’an by the name milk al-yamin, “that which your right hands possess” [Qur’an 4:24]. This is a verse from the Qur’an which is still in force, and has not been abrogated. The milk al-yamin are the sex-slaves. You go to the market, look at the sex-slave, and buy her. She becomes like your wife, (but) she doesn’t need a (marriage) contract or a divorce like a free woman, nor does she need a wali. All scholars agree on this point – there is no disagreement from any of them. […] When I want a sex slave, I just go to the market and choose the woman I like and purchase her.
Obdeillah trots out the usual shills to advance the “religion of peace” narrative. Of course, there are Muslims that don’t want to kill us. We expect that. But we don’t have to pat on the back every Muslim that doesn’t want to kill us. That bloody fact is the very problem in Islamism. And part of the problem is that we are prohibited from talking about the problem.
Obdeillah goes on to equate other acts of terror to jihad, implying they, too, are religious terror. He wants the media to refer to killers like Timothy McVeigh as “Christian terrorists.” But McVeigh was not acting in the cause of Christianity. Christianity and Judaism do not call for the slaughter of non-Christians and non-Jews. We do not see Christians slaughtering non-Christians shouting, “Jesus is greater,” nor Jews screaming, “HaShem is greater” and beheading people. This is a dishonest premise. Nazism was not in the cause of Christ. These fictional equivocations are a distraction from talking about Islam.
There have been over 23,000 deadly Islamic attacks (not including thwarted plots) since 9/11, each one with the imprimatur of a Muslim cleric. Truth is the recognition of reality, or to quote Aristotle, “A is A.”
The global jihad is a worldwide movement. Comparing it to an abortion clinic protest–or, rarer still, an abortion clinic bombing–is irrational and ridiculous. Nowhere in Christian teachings is there a compulsion to bomb or maim in the cause of Christianity. It is not Christian teaching.
Ground Zero mosqueteer Imam Feisal Rauf, the imam who tried to erect a 15-story mega-mosque in a building destroyed in the 9/11 attacks, is quoted in the piece:
Words matter. By seeing the word “Islam” embedded in “Islamist,” people will naturally, but mistakenly, believe there’s some connection between the actions of Boko Haram and Islam.
Obdeillah will have to take that up with Boko Haram. They are saying it. We are reporting it. Boko Haram is citing Quranic texts and teachings.
So when Dean Obeidallah and Rauf and Daisy Khan and the progressive media say that Boko Haram has nothing to do with Islam, tell that to the young schoolgirls forced to wear that garb of hate and recite the Qur’an after being forcibly converted and sold like meat to Islam.
Pamela Geller is the President of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), publisher of PamelaGeller.com and author of The Post-American Presidency: The Obama Administration’s War on America and Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance. Follow her on Twitter here. Like her on Facebook here.